The present invention relates to a remote control system for remotely controlling various electronic devices, and more particularly to a remote control system for remotely controlling devices such as AV (audio visual) devices by way of voice commands.
In recent years, various AV devices such as stereo sets, television receivers, cassette tape decks, video tape decks, compact disk players, laser vision disk players, or the like are equipped with remote control systems.
A remote control system has a transmitter which is usually positioned remotely from a controlled AV device. The transmitter, when operated, transmits a remote control signal, such as an infrared remote control signal, which is received by a receiver in the controlled AV device. The received remote control signal is decoded to control the AV device as intended by the remote control signal.
There has recently been developed a voice-operated remote control system which employs voice control commands instead of control commands entered through keys. The voice-operated remote control system has a microphone mounted on a transmitter for converting a voice command into an electric voice signal, and a speech recognition LSI (Large Scale Integration) circuit for generating a remote control signal which corresponds to a voice pattern represented by the voice signal. The remote control signal thus generated is transmitted to a receiver in a controlled AV device.
In conventional voice-operated remote control system, standard pattern data corresponding to voice commands given by the operator are registered in advance. When a voice command is applied for remote control, the input voice command is recognized on the basis of the registered standard pattern data.
The voice sound uttered by the operator may not necessarily be the same at all times. Features of the voice sound of the operator may sometimes vary from those at the time the operator's standard pattern data were registered. If the voice sound features vary, then pattern data of an input voice command do not coincide with the standard pattern data, and the speech recognition rate is lowered.
In order to avoid the above drawback, it is necessary to register the standard pattern data again at a suitable time. However, the process of registering the standard pattern data again is tedious and time-consuming, and makes the remote control system inconvenient to use.